The idea of the institutional critique raises a lot of confusion for me, to begin with the idea of being limited by the mundane and often conservative views of the establishment in order to gain success is a horrifying concept for me. Despite this I also can entertain the notion that the need for an institutional critique is almost imperative to the existence of artistic practice, funnily enough this seems to be reflected, as the existence of the institutional critique is void without the presence of art. In our recent tutorial on ‘Situationists: from anti art to Situationalism’, a member of the group brought up an example of an American man who decided to walk the Australian dessert, eventually having to be rescued from his self implicated struggle. This to me is an interesting analogy, the individual in question possibly decided to give up on society and the expected ways of life and walk off through the dessert in order to live via his own means, not bending to the whim of society but rather making his own personal journey with no particular goal in sight, other than the hope to survive. BUT, eventually this person was rescued, rescued by people employed by the establishment, funded via the government and taxpayers of this country. Using this as an example of the complete disregard for a capitalist system is nullified, the protagonist of this story decided to reject accepted norms, but eventually the establishment saved him. I’m not at all conveying that capitalism is the answer and that we should ignore the theories of a perfect socialist society, but I am making the point that until we can create and uphold an “art world” within which we enjoy and want to be a part of completely free from the structures and crutches put in place by the institutional critique, we should attempt to amend the current system before abandoning it.
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